Dino Citraro is one of DJA's pre-jury members

Posted:
18 March 2014

Author:
Mirko Lorenz

We are proud to announce that Dino Citraro, from Periscopic will be one of Data Journalism Awards' pre-jury members. Here is a little bit more about him and his answers to a couple questions Mirko Lorenz, director of DJA, asked him.

Dino Citraro is Head of Strategic Design and Operations at Periscopic, and has a strong background in problem solving, creative direction, and writing. A twenty-year veteran of the multimedia industry, his work has spanned immersive online development, application design, interactive motion pictures, multi-player games, and interactive hardware installations. He is the Visualization Editor of the Big Data journal, as well as a contributing blogger to several industry sites. He is also an accomplished photographer, a published poet, and has written and illustrated seven children’s books.

In your opinion, what is the role of data visualization in news reporting - via media or other sources?

It seems that the primary goal should be to facilitate objectivity while dispelling the belief that people are entitled to their own 'facts'.

What is the biggest change in this field of work in the last two, three years?

Access to raw and open data seems to be the biggest change. Added to that would be access to many new data visualization tools that help reveal the shape of data.

How can journalists and newsrooms approach data projects? What are typical mistakes to avoid?

To me, all journalism projects are data projects. Data is information, and journalists should be proficient at conveying information and insight. Using data is not too dissimilar to using other sources in that you need to make sure it’s properly vetted, is compelling, is accurate, and is presented as objectively as possible. When people first start working with data it is easy to assume that the first visual form it takes is the truest, but the challenge is to push the data into as many shapes as you can until you start to reveal the overall patterns and insights.

What would be a data visualization project you would like to see or work on yourself?

I would like to see more work done on income and resource inequality, and how that leads to the collapse of society (NASA just completed a study on this). I think this is also related to the unjustifiable salaries we pay celebrities and sports figures, as well as business leaders.

If you are interested in the Data Journalism Awards, you can find more information here. Submissions are accepted until 4 April.